(Jerry Quarry and Jimmy Lennon Sr., on left) 24.09.07 – By Ted Sares: “…..In 1992, [Jerry] Quarry inexplicably fought one final time. Believing he could make a comeback as George Foreman had, he took a bout in Colorado, a state where reportedly no boxing license was required. This comeback bout was for a disgracefully low amount of prize money, and he took a ferocious six-round pounding by an unknown club fighter named Ron Cranmer (3-4-1 coming in).
He lost by decision in a fight in which he stood in the middle of the ring and was bludgeoned by one hammering punch after another. Cranmer was not to blame. He was in there doing what boxers are supposed to do; namely, render their opponents temporarily unconscious by causing a simple concussion, but hopefully without leaving any permanent damage. However, hard and accumulated blows can bruise the brain, breaking some of its blood vessels and destroying nerve cells. This kind of damage can kill. This was not boxing; this was blood sport. Quarry left the ring with broken teeth, cuts over his eyes, a battered brain, and $1,050 in ring money. Three years later, he was living on Social Security and not much more.
This was not an unfortunate accident sneaking up on us without warning from the culture of boxing. This was not a Leavander Johnson situation. No, this was culpability in plain sight. It would be Quarry’s last fight. He was forty-seven at the time. From there, Quarry began his dreadful and irreversible slide into oblivion, but, by analyzing the time line of events, it seems reasonable to assume he was already badly damaged going into the Colorado fight and that the awful slide had begun well before that fateful fight. Just four years after the Colorado fight, Pete Hamill wrote “Today, at fifty-one, Quarry is a shell of a man, his mind gone, lost to dementia pugilistic, his millions of dollars in earnings long vanished. Steve Wilstein of the Associated Press found him last year in Hemet, California, where Quarry was living with a brother on $614 a month from Social Security.
Wilstein wrote: “He needs help shaving, showering, putting on shoes and socks. Soon, probably, diapers. His older brother, James, cuts meat into little pieces for him so he won’t choke and has to coax him to eat anything except the Apple Cinnamon Cheerios he loves in the morning. Jerry smiles like a kid. Shuffles like an old man. Slow and slurred speech. Random thoughts snagged on branches in a dying brain. Time blurred. Memories twisted. Voices no one else hears. Wilstein talked to Dr. Peter Russell, a neurophysiologist who examined Quarry last year. Russell said: “Jerry Quarry now has the brain of an eighty-year old. He’s at third-stage dementia, very similar to Alzheimers.
If he lives another ten years, he’ll be lucky. As it turned out, Quarry was not lucky. In just four years, from the time of his last fight at age forty-seven until age fifty-one, he had become an invalid. He spent his final years debilitated and died on January 3, 1999, way before his time at age fifty-three. Now nothing I have said so far is particularly new, but there is one thing that disturbingly never seems to get written about—that last ill-advised fight in Colorado. Why has no one ever investigated the circumstances surrounding it, and why has nothing been written about it other than the result? Hell, why was it even allowed? Was there a story behind the story? Perhaps there are some lessons to be learned by further investigation, or maybe it’s best to let things be. Maybe it’s all too late. The tragic time line looks like this:
1. On May 8, 1974, Quarry beat Joe Alexander but showed signs of sluggishness and bloat. These may have been the first warning signs
2. On June 17, 1974, he fought and lost badly to Joe Frazier
3. In 1975, he fought and also lost badly to Ken Norton. He retired for two years.
4. In 1977, he won a dreadful come-from-behind victory over Lorenzo Zanon
5. In 1983, while researching a magazine article about the health problems of retired boxers, a Sports Illustrated reporter visited Quarry, then 37 and training for a comeback attempt. though the boxer appeared to be in good health, his performances on several simple cognitive tests were shockingly poor
6. In 1983, he won two fights against mediocre opposition
7. In 1992, after nine years of inactivity and at age forty-seven, he fought and lost to unknown Ron Cranmer in Colorado and took tremendous punishment.
8. By 1996 and at age fifty-one, he was an invalid. This was just four years after his last fight.
9. Early in 1999, Jerry Quarry passed away at age 53.
This good-looking Irish kid with a great smile and an engaging boy-next-door manner and sunny California way was one of my favorite warriors. His hardscrabble heritage was of the hot dusty farms of the Grapes of Wrath, and that was part of his appeal. Walking down the aisle, rolling his shoulders, loosening up his arms, he was Mr. Charisma. He was gritty, real, and fun to watch. He deserved better. If there is a heaven for boxers, Quarry is there.
His hardscrabble heritage was of the hot dusty farms of the Grapes of Wrath, and that was part of his appeal. Walking down the aisle, rolling his shoulders, loosening up his arms, he was Mr. Charisma. He was gritty, real, and fun to watch. He deserved better. If there is a heaven for boxers, Quarry is there. His brother, James, started the Jerry Quarry Foundation to help raise money for Quarry and to help other boxers with dementia. A better course might have been the adoption of strict safety standards for boxing so that there will be no need for post-career treatment of brain damage, but hindsight is always 20/20. These days, when I watch Evander Holyfield try to recapture the magic, I think back to Aurora, Colorado. I think about time lines. I think about watching Muhammad Ali, a shell of the man he once was, enter Madison Square Garden to cheers on the night of the Brock-Klitschko fight.
The thing is, boxers are not reborn at the age of forty-four or forty-eight. A George Foreman comes along only once in a great while. Holyfield is no George Foreman, at least I don’t think he is.
1. Hamill, Pete. “Blood on Their Hands The Corrupt and Brutal World of Professional Boxing.” Esquire Magazine, June 1, 1996